Redressing: Who can wear which dress Wednesday? #6 Bias cuts dresses

"The "bias-cut" is a technique used by designers for cutting clothing to utilize the greater stretch in the bias or diagonal direction of the fabric." Definition taken from Wikipedia.

In layman's terms, cutting fabric on the diagonal causes it to have much more stretch which results in it accentuating body lines and curves and causing it to drape softly. For example, a full-skirted dress cut on the bias will hang more gracefully or a narrow dress will cling to the figure.

Bias-cut garments began to appear in the 1920s and 1930s and were an important feature of the designs of French designer and dressmaker Madeleine Vionnet. She firmly believed, as I do, that "when a women smiles, her dress should smile too". Vionnet's designs rejected corsets, padding and various other structured tailoring of the day and instead should accentuate the natural female form.

With this celebration of the more natural female form in mind, this Wednesdays post looks at which body shape best suits the bias cut, and which of Redressing's collections fall into the bias cut style!

Although historically a popular choice for wedding dresses and silk or satin Posh Frocks, the bias cut dress doesn't have to stay there. A bias cut dress can also be worn as a more everyday option.

This particular dress is a cute, cap sleeved ditsy print dress with a slightly asymmetrical hemline. As it is cut on the bias it will softly cling to your shape. As bias cuts are usually a 'no-no' for traditional pear shapes, finding one with some sleeve detail makes it possible to balance out the bottom-heavy part of your figure and create the elusive hourglass one which bias cut dresses most readily suit.

Long bias cut dresses will give you the appearance of length and can successfully balance out if you have a longer torso and shorter legs.

Bias cut dresses most definitely do cling so you do need to be aware of that! However some of the most celebrated pear shaped celebs (like the lovely J.Lo) have made bias cuts part of their trade mark style!

Bottom line (no pun intended!) is that whatever your shape, if you are happy to let the bias cut of the fabric cling showing your fabulous female form then go right ahead and dress yourself in bias cuts!
here are some of Redressing's bias cut beauties...X